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What is ABF material?

The ABF material was developed by Intel to be used in the production of high-level carriers such as the Flip Chip. In general, ABF stands for the thin composite material, also known as “Ajinomoto reinforced film,” which is a resin substrate that acts as an insulator in all modern integrated circuits. It is used to connect the processor to a base layer called the substrate, forming part of the chip package, connecting the chip to the motherboard, and protecting it from damage. The ABF is laminated onto a substrate and then plated with copper so that circuits can be made. In the PCB manufacturing industry, ABF material can be turned into a highly durable rigid film that resists expansion and contraction due to temperature changes, making it capable of serving as a substrate between millimeter- scale or even nanoscale components of processors or IC chips. ABF substrate material is ultra-high frequency carrier material, compared with BT substrate, ABF material can be made of fine line, suitable for the high frequency of high message transmission IC, mostly used for CPU, GPU, and other large high- end chips.

 

The AFB substrate consists of multiple layers of microcircuits, known as the “building block substrate”, which can accommodate a large number of micro-components. The reason is that the surface can accept laser machining and direct copper plating, so the ABF material substrate is used by many chip manufacturers to design smaller components in the CPU or GPU. ABF substrates are widely used in high-performance computing chips in satellites, 5G base stations, and self-driving cars.

 

At present, ABF material substrate in the global market is mainly dominated by a few countries such as Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. The major manufacturers of ABF materials are Unimicron, Ibieen, Nanya PCB, Shinko Electric Industries, Kinsus, AT&S, Semco, and Kyocera, among which are the world’s top eight ABF material substrate manufacturers, They account for more than 85% of the market share, ABF material substrate market potential is huge, attracting almost all ABF material manufacturers scrambling to expand their production, in addition to the existing ABF material substrate manufacturers, there are also many companies plan to join the ABF material substrate market this blue sea. As ABF substrates are widely used in high-performance computing chips in satellites, 5G base stations, and autonomous vehicles, with the rapid development of these technologies, the scale of ABF substrates used in PCB production will be increasingly large